Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Project 3-3 (C4T 3)

This says teacher.
Ira David Socol
For the past two weeks, I have been commenting on Mr. Socol's blog SpeEd Change.  The first post I commented on was Re-thinking the Middle School.  In this post, Mr. Socol basically describes all the reasons that middle schools need to be taught in a different way.  He points out certain problems like treating students as adults in situations beneficial to the teacher but treating them like kids in other situations.  This was my comment:
Mr. Socol,
I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I absolutely LOVED your post!! Wow!! It totally hit home. I have been thinking exactly the same things you brought up. It's ridiculous that teachers treat teenagers like adults when it's convenient but then use the child card in situations so they can get their way. I always felt more mature than I was allowed to be in junior high school. This did not lead to good things for teachers. I generally rebelled against every form of authority. Actually, I still find myself doing it now that I'm older. I can't stand feeling less than anyone, no matter what his/her age. Students should not feel less. It isn't right. Teachers should treat students how they would want to be treated, and I bet students would return the favor.
Susie Salter



Post 2
The second post I commented on was Question Everything.  In this post, Mr. Socol argues against a comment someone tweeted.  "Questioning everything is idiotic and a waste of time."  Mr. Socol disagrees because he thinks most learning occurs when we question things.  This is my comment:
Hello again,
My name is Susie Salter, and I commented on another post of yours. I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I totally agree with what you are saying about questioning everything. If we don't question things, we will never learn and grow. If no one had ever questioned anything, we would have still been sitting in a cave grunting. :-DSusie Salter

Project 7 (C4K March)

These are children.
Post 1
For my first and only C4K this month, I commented on "Change of World" by Amel and Kaitlyn.  Amel and Kaitlyn go to Bradford schools, and their teacher is Sara Stones.  In this post, these children had written a very unique story.  It started out in a way that you were not expecting it to end the way it did.  This was my comment:
Hello,
My name is Susie Salter, and I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. I really liked this post. It was so creative. You could be a writer some day!
Keep up the good work!
Susie


Blog Assignment 9

This is a statement about new things.
Mr. McClung 2008-2009
The first blog post that I read of Mr. McClung was his What I've Learned This Year 2008-2009.  I thought it would be best to start at the beginning of his journey as a teacher because I will soon be a "new" teacher, and his experiences might give me some good advice.  That is one thing I can say about Dr. McClung's post; it gives a lot of good advice.  I like how he does not try to be fake and say that everything went fantastic his first year of teaching.  I like that he addresses the issues he had the first year.  The first thing he learned was that you have to let students drive your instruction.  I found this statement enlightening because you never really think about that aspect when you make a presentation.  I am a student now, so it is hard to imagine relating something to kids who will be my students.  We always get caught up with what our superiors think of our work.  That is not what teaching is about.  We need to get a message across to the students any way we can.

The next thing Mr. McClung learned was to be flexible.  This is another great piece of advice because you never really think about planning a lesson that might not go exactly how you plan it.  I always want everything to go exactly right, so it was odd to think about the aspect that everything will not go right.  I know this is true though.  It would have to be.  If students are interacting in a lesson, there is no way that the lesson you have planned can be performed exactly the way you planned it.  This is the reason that teachers have to be very resourceful and adaptive.  We have to think on our feet.

Another good point Mr. McClung brings up is that communication is key.  If you want to build bonds with co-workers or students, you have to communicate.  I already realized this, even though I might still need some practice in the communication department.  Going along with the communication aspect of teaching, Mr. McClung says that it is very important to listen to your students.  The only way you can get their respect is to get to know them.  I completely agree with this.  I definitely would not want to listen to someone who did not even care enough to get to know me.  We as teachers are sort of role models for students.  The better connected we can get to them, the better we can help them.

Be reasonable.  I love this statement because I feel like a lot of teachers need to get a better grasp on this concept.  You cannot expect perfection out of students.  No one is perfect.  Also, you cannot expect them to do exorbitant amounts of work because that is unreasonable.  I hope I am never that teacher who gives so much work that the students hate the class.  That is all tons of work does to a student.  It makes them dread the class, or that is what happens with me.  I have learned more in classes that I can easily keep up with my work because I am not so stressed out all the time.  When you have too much work, you just try to get it done, and that does not help with learning.  Students should be taught in a way that makes them happy to learn.

Don't be afraid of technology.  This statement really applies to this class.  I know a lot of people who are currently teachers that dread even thinking about incorporating technology into the classroom.  All I have to say about that is it doesn't matter whether you like it or not.  The students need to learn certain technical skills to be successful.  We are teachers.  It is our job to teach them these skills even if we don't agree.  This goes along with what Mr. McClung said about always being a learner.  In order to give kids an appropriate education, we as teachers have to expand our horizons and learn new things.  The world changes every day and so should we.

Mr. McClung 2009-2010
So, basically, Mr. McClung has to start all over in his second year of teaching.  He thought he had everything figured out when he taught elementary kids, but he soon realized that he did not know everything.  Mr. McClung started teaching 8th grade.  Not only was the fact that these were older kids difficult, but he also had to teach a subject he had never taught before: history.  Once again, I like the fact that Mr. McClung was honest that he probably did not do the best job teaching history to start with.  He probably did not get the hang of it until towards the end of the year.  Even though I like his honesty, I did not like this blog post as much as the first one.  He had a lot of major grammatical errors.  The first post had a few errors, but this one made it hard to read because there were so many.  I just don't think that is very professional.  Another thing I did not like was the fact that he blamed his bad year on administration.  I realize that a lot of times administration can cause tension with teachers, but it seemed like Mr. McClung was a fish out of water in this Jr. High History situation.  He was probably not doing his best job teaching, as he alluded to in his post.  I just would have rather him said that he had some kinks without blaming the authority figure.  Overall, Mr. McClung had a lot of the same ideas he had in the first blog post.  This time his ideas were just renewed because he was thrown into a different situation.  This just goes to show that a teacher must be very flexible.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Blog Assignment 8

Richard Miller: "This Is How We Dream"
After watching This Is How We Dream Parts One and Two, I immediately connected this video to other videos I have watched in this class.  Technology makes all (or most) things possible.  Who would have ever imagined that you could do so many different things at one time?  Multi-tasking is made possible with technology.  I cannot imagine how long it would take to do certain projects without smart phones, the internet, and computers.  With the internet, we have information at our fingertips.  You can google any question you can think of, and it will generate an answer.  With smart phones, we have information everywhere we go.  I have lived without a smart phone, but now that I've had one for a while, I would not WANT to live without it.  Richard Miller asks how we could not be interested in the movement towards using more technology.  It makes things so much easier.

I liked how this video connected Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream. . ." speech to the dream of using technology as a method of collaboration and learning.  It is intriguing to think how many things have changed since the Civil Rights Movement.  If people like Dr. King and other leaders would have had the use of technology at their fingertips, they probably could have made a more compelling point.  Also, the word would have traveled much faster.  People could have read about speeches or watched videos of speeches instead of having to endanger themselves by going to the actual speech location.  How nice is it that we now can view controversial material in the privacy of our own home without the possibility of violence?  We have everything at our fingertips.  Is this good or bad?  I think it is a little bit of both.  We are less social because of technology.  We would rather write to people through text or email than see them in person.  We are also probably less adventurous.  When people were bored before the internet, they had to go out and do something amongst other people if they wanted entertainment.  Now, we can just sit on the computer and have all the entertainment we want.  I guess everything has its pros and cons.

Am I prepared to write with multimedia?  I don't know.  I think I could figure it out, but what the video displayed looked complicated most of the time.  I sort of already write with multimedia because any research paper I have to do has sources that I found online, but this video was talking about a more advanced movement.  It does not matter whether or not I think I am ready for it; I still think this movement would revolutionize collaboration and presentations.  If you want to get your point across, you have to make your argument compelling.  With these tools, any argument could be compelling.  All a person has to do is be willing to learn how to use these tools.

Carly Pugh's Blog Post #12
In Blog Post #12, Carly Pugh comes up with her own assignment that she thinks would be a great assignment for Dr. Strange to use in EDM 310.  She comes up with the idea that it would be great to create a Youtube playlist of several different things that are important to you as a teacher and write about your philosophy as a teacher.  Carly does her project in her blog post.  She finds all kinds of great videos that interested her as a teacher.  I think this blog post was great.  What I liked about it the most was that it was written so well.  It just flowed like she was talking.  A lot of people try to write so "proper" that it sounds straight out of a textbook, but Carly really used her own words.  This made the post even better.  I love how Carly is devoted to creativity.  I am an English major as well, and that is what I love about English.  When you read something, your personal experiences influence the meaning you get out of it.  This is why it is so great to let kids do things like make a new ending to a book or story.  That requires actual thought and not just robot writing where they tell the teacher what they think the teacher thinks is important.  Also, this post is definitely an example of  writing with multi-media.  Carly connected so many different things in one place.  It is great.  It would have taken forever to have gone on Youtube and located those videos on your own, but she had them right there.  Having the links in her post really enhanced what she had to say because you had visual reassurance of what she was talking about.  This is a great example of being committed and creative.  All future teachers should learn by example.

EDM 310 Is Different
When I watched The Chipper Series, I could not help laughing out loud.  That video was hilarious.  Chipper had to do everything wrong before she realized that she could not procrastinate (her definition) on everything she did.  Originally, she thought everything should run on her time.  She thought she was so important that people like teachers and employers should work around her schedule.  After being fired from every job and finally having to become a garbage collector, Chipper realized that she needed to go back to school and do her work.

When I watched EDM 310 for Dummies, it reminded me of myself at the beginning of this class.  All the different projects thrown at you at one time will make you feel like you are going crazy.  After taking some time doing my work for this class, I have realized that it is not nearly as bad as I had thought it was going to be in the beginning.  I thought it was cute to use EDM 310 for Dummies as a resource for students in this class.  I bet a lot of people would want to get their hands on that book, but really all you need are the instruction manuals!

After watching these two student produced videos, I think the video that I would like to do would involve multi-tasking and time management.  Have a student who takes a lot of different classes (including EDM 310), works, has a boyfriend/girlfriend, and tries to stay social.  Follow this student and his/her struggles to become a multi-tasker and a proper time manager.  First, make everything seem crazy and hard (which it is to start with).  Later, show that EDM 310 taught this student to multi-task and time manage so he/she could get his/her work done on time.  I would like to do a video like this because multi-tasking and time management are some of the main things that I have learned in this class.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn
After watching Learn to Change, Change to Learn, I began thinking about the different structure of school that this video seemed to advocate.  I feel like these people were saying that students and teachers do not even have to meet in a classroom setting anymore.  They can learn through technology separately.  It reminded me a lot of how this class is structured.  The only problem I have with this concept is that when students are still in middle school or high school, they are not responsible enough to keep up with their work on their own.  This would end up being a parent project.  The parents who cared about their child's grades would take over and do the work for the child.  The other children would just not do well unless they were already mature enough to do their work.  Not many younger people are that mature though.  Also, students this age have not learned enough base knowledge in things like grammar to go out on their own and do work like we do in this class.  It is a good idea in theory, but I just don't see how it would work effectively.

Scavenger Hunt 2.0
For the Scavenger Hunt 2.0, first we had to watch Discovery Education Web 2.0 for 2011.  This video basically just describes what Web 2.0 is.  Web 2.0 is a center for learning that is based on three things.  The network has to be interactive, accessible, and collaborative.  After watching this video, we had to go on a scavenger hunt in Web 2.0 Tools.  We have to find three different things.

The first thing we had to find was a tool similar to Facebook that provides a social platform for teachers, parents, and students.  The tool I found is called Edmodo.  It is almost the same thing as Facebook; it is just a teacher version.  Instead of just being able to read posts and view pictures like Facebook, this site offers a lot of great tools for teachers.  It would be very useful because you can post grades on the site for students to see.  Also, you can post assignments and quizzes on the site.  This site was like a combination of USA online and Facebook.  It would be useful for a teacher because if a parent wanted to find out his/her child's grade or assignments, he/she could just go to this site, and he/she would know everything that was going on in the class.

The next thing I had to find was a video tool that I had never used before.  I chose Animoto.  This video tool is cool because, first, it  syncs with Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, and SmugMug to get your images in a snap. You can add text and emphasize specific images with the touch of a button.  Second, you can add your own music to Animoto to use in your videos.  Third, you can share your videos very easily with whoever you want.


The third thing I had to find was a tool that creates a poll. 


Thursday, March 8, 2012

Project 3-2

This is a fish bowl.
Karl Fisch
For the last month, I have been commenting on Karl Fisch's blog.  Mr. Fisch has been a teacher for twenty-three years. He has taught middle and high school students math and is currently Director of Technology at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado.  His blog is called The Fischbowl.  


First Comment
The first post I commented on was Videos I'd Like My Future Principal to Watch: PBL at HTH.  This video was about a high school called High Tech High.  This school was structured in a completely different way than most high school's are.  The kids learned different trade skills along with curriculum.  This is my comment:


Hey Mr. Fisch,
My name is Susie Salter, and I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I want to start off by saying that I love how humble you are. Not many people would admit that they would not hire themselves to teach in the dream school. Also, I love the way you write. It is very open and easy to understand.
When I first watched the video, I was completely surprised. The school was not what I expected. I think it is so great that they are teaching students real life skills. These things will help the children in the future. I also like the fact that the teachers treat the students as adults. I was always irritated in high school because teachers would not treat me as an adult. I felt like I was capable of making my own decisions, but my independence usually just got me into trouble.
I look forward to reading more of your blog posts. You can visit our class blog at edm310.blogspot.com
Sincerely,
Susie Salter



Second Comment
The second post I commented on was Trends I'd Like My Future Principal to Consider: Jobs Are Disappearing But Work Isn't.  This post was basically about how schools are set up to help students in the old workforce.  Schools have rigid instruction and grade systems that make kids not want to learn.  Students need to be life-long learners to succeed in today's job market.  This is my comment:


Hey Mr. Fisch,

I commented on one of you posts a few weeks ago. My name is Susanelle Salter, and I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I think this post was a lot to think about. We do have to be life-long learners to survive in the workforce today. You are right about schools; they do not teach us this principal. Classes make people think in the mindset of "if I can just get through this, I'll be done." Classes should not make students hate learning, and I think the rigid structure of some classes does just that.

Susanelle Salter